Event: CityCamp Raleigh Expands Statewide for Third Annual Event

CityCamp NC, an event to promote citizen participation and government transparency, today announced plans to host the now state-focused event that brings together citizens, government and businesses in order to ignite innovation focused on improving quality of life through technology. For the 3rd year, the event elevates civic technology issues and enables the conversations that are necessary to improve the place we live.

"Over the last two years, we've advanced the open government movement in Raleigh; the CityCamp umbrella needed to grow to include other cities and municipalities in North Carolina. In addition to Durham, Cary, and Chapel Hill, many other cities around the state such as Asheville, contain energetic open source enthusiasts and tech-savvy programmers and designers," said Jason Hibbets, CityCamp NC Co-Chair. "The advantage to our Capital City location is close access to State government. CityCamp NC becomes the community launch pad where everyone around the state comes to prototype ideas, make connections, and improve the State of North Carolina."

CityCamp NC will be held during the work-week, Thursday and Friday, May 30 -31, 2013, followed by a Nation Day of Civic Hacking event hosted by Raleigh's Code for America Brigade on June 1, 2013. And new this year, CityCamp NC will be held at the James B. Hunt Jr. Library on the NC State University Campus. Annually, the event builds on passionate involvement from volunteers, city and state advocates, local businesses and returning and new sponsors like GoTriangle, North Carolina Technology Association (NCTA), Red Hat, Lenovo, OrgSpan, and WRAL.

"Last years' experience was terrific. Lorena Akin pitched the idea of a mobile app for greenway users and a few hours' later six strangers became collaborators, friends and winners," said Eric Majewicz, member of the 2012 winning RGreenway team. "Our group used open data provided by the City of Raleigh to build an app that lets users navigate and interactively utilize the city's greenway system." The RGreenway team (http://rgreenway.com) continues to meet regularly to continue implementing improvements for the original mobile app. To date the app has had 7,000 downloads of the iPhone version and 650 downloads of the Android version.

This year, CityCamp NC will award a top prize of $3000 plus a consulting session with Jason Caplain at Bull City Venture Partners to the winning team. A second and third team will be awarded prizes of $1000 and $500, respectively.

The event kicks off Thursday, May 30th with Adriel Hampton, VP of Community at NationBuilder, inspiring with "Be Here Now: Living Open Government"followed by lightening talks, pitches, and unconference sessions where ideas begin to solidify and teams begin to form. Friday, May 31 is a build day culminating with the team presentations and awards.

North Carolina State Senator Josh Stein added, "Government should provide citizens open access to information like transit data so the people can innovate and help improve government's delivery of services. CityCamp North Carolina helps our effort to transform and enhance public confidence in government."

Prior to May 16, the event is $10 to attend and includes breakfast and lunch both days and a CityCamp NC t-shirt. Prior to May 16, the event is $5 for students and government employees (appropriate ID must be shown at the door). After May 16, the price continues to be $10 ($5 for students and government employees) but breakfast/lunch/t-shirt will not be guaranteed.The event kicks off Thursday, May 30 at 9am [doors open at 8:15am] at the James B. Hunt Jr. Library on the NC State University Campus, and continues through Friday, May 31 concluding at 6pm. Parking is free. The team presentations will begin at 5pm on Friday, May 31.